Low blood sugar may keep some cancers at bay: study
WASHINGTON. KAZINFORM An international team of biologists suggested that having diet low in sugar might keep certain cancers in check.
The studypublished on Tuesday in the journal Cell Reports showed that restricting bloodglucose levels in mice with a kind of lung cancer kept tumors from progressing, Xinhua reports.
The teamled by scientists at the University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas) fed the micea ketogenic diet, which is very low in sugar, and by giving them a diabetesdrug that prevents glucose in the blood from being reabsorbed by the kidneys.
They foundthat the further growth of squamous cell carcinoma tumors in mice with lungcancer was inhibited, although they were not shrunk.
«Thekey finding of our new study in mice is that a ketogenic diet alone does havesome tumor-growth inhibitory effect in squamous cell cancer,» saidJung-Whan Kim, the paper's corresponding author and assistant professor ofbiological sciences at UT Dallas.
Theresearchers also found a robust correlation between higher blood-glucoseconcentration and worse survival among patients with squamous cell carcinoma.
However,glucose restriction did not have any effect on non-squamous-cell cancer types,according to the preclinical research.
«Ourresults suggest that this approach is cancer-cell-type specific. We cannotgeneralize to all types of cancer,» Kim said.
While manytypes of cancer cells are suspected to be heavily dependent on sugar as theirenergy supply, Kim's team found that squamous cell carcinoma is remarkably moredependent than other cancer types, according to the study.